


Share Your Scars

by walfpups



Category: Supernatural
Genre: (thats why major character death), A Gracious Plenty AU, Angst, Ghosts, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-14
Updated: 2013-05-14
Packaged: 2017-12-11 20:23:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/802835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/walfpups/pseuds/walfpups
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Destiel AU based on theories and philosophies of A Gracious Plenty by Sheri Reynolds. Castiel owns a cemetery and can see and speak to the dead. Dean is a new tenant. The dead control nature until they work through their living world issues. Castiel helps Dean work through his issues. Very angsty, and if you like John, you might want to stay away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Share Your Scars

Castiel relaxes on the porch of his modest house that sits smack in the middle of a cemetery.  It’s his family’s cemetery, or at least it was before his mother died and his father left him with older brothers and sisters that moved away as soon as Castiel was out of high school.  Lucifer left as soon as his dad had, but Michael was the one who really pushed him away.  Anna and Uriel had stayed the longest, but Anna moved to New York two years ago.  The only solace Castiel took was that Uriel had remained close.  Though they didn’t share the house or the cemetery anymore, Uriel had stayed in Kansas, and was currently only fifteen miles away.  He still stops by sometimes, but Uriel doesn’t like spending time in the graveyard, and he’s made it clear in the past.

Castiel watches the funeral taking place with a cat on his lap. It’s a big, fluffy orange thing, and it’s shedding all over Castiel’s work clothes, but he doesn’t mind too much. He’s the owner and the only employee of the cemetery, it being a family business first and all. He looks out to a freshly dug grave about sixty meters out from where he’s resting. It’s a small funeral. There’s a young man with long, long hair who seems to be seven feet tall, wearing jeans and flannel. Next to him is a bearded man in old-timey suspenders and a sailor's cap. An older man with slicked back hair under a trucker's cap stands beside the tallest one. The last member of the funeral party, excluding the deceased, is a tall black man with a shaved head, wearing suit that looks like it’s been worn too often to be a rental for the occasion.

The four men stand around the open grave, caskett not yet lowered in, looking very solemn. Well, two of them look solemn. The tallest one with the long hair is crying. The man in the trucker's cap steps closer and wraps his arm around his shoulders comfortingly. The tallest man’s shoulders are shaking, and it appears difficult for the third man to keep his arm in place. The fourth man is shaking his head and squinting like it hurts to look at the scene.

****

Traditionally, in Castiel’s profession, the graveyard keeper does not necessarily join the funeral.  Whether it be common courtesy, or respect of privacy, or, in Castiel’s case, severe discomfort, they leave them to their mourning.  

“Hey bro, you gonna say ‘hey’ or what,” asks Gabriel, who appears in the doorway, leaning against it with his ankles crossed, trying to look nonchalant and succeeding.

“You know I don’t do that, Gabe.  Let them mourn.”  Castiel doesn’t look up at Gabriel, refusing to give him the satisfaction.  

Gabriel is Castiel’s least favorite older brother.  Or was, he should say.  Gabriel overdosed on ecstasy at a party four years ago.  Gabriel had a thing for all things colorful, shiny, and sweet back then.  He still does, in the few ways he can get it.

“I wasn’t talking about those knuckleheads!  You gonna greet the new guy or what?  You know it’ll take Missouri hours to get out here.  You better get to him before Meg does.”

“Crap.”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll go over once the living leave,”  Castiel promises.  He can see that Gabe doesn’t believe him.  Castiel’s not so sure he’s up for it either.  He’d been tending to Alan Corbett’s plot all morning.  Ed, who Corbett talked about like he was the second coming, had sent a letter with a check to plant a tree to keep Alan company while he and his “business partner” traveled across the country.  It’s hard work, planting a baby tree.  

“Here, I’ll take a nap, and you can wake me when they’re gone.  It doesn’t look like they’re leaving any time soon.”  Castiel finally turns to look up at Gabe, his big brother, who just smirks and nods before disappearing to do whatever he should be doing.  

He sighs and stretches while walking inside.  The preacher will take care of the funeral, now for Castiel to get some much needed rest.

********  
  


“So-o-o-o-o-o-o-o...”  Meg strings out her vowels when she’s sitting on something she wants to tell Castiel, but still wants to taunt him in the fundamental ‘I know something you don’t know’ manner that she never really got the chance to grow out of.  “The new guy’s a dick.”

Castiel rolls over in bed to turn towards her, raising his eyebrows.

“Well, he is,” she drawls out.  “Hot though.  I mean, you should see him.  Huge anime eyes, and big muscles, and plump lips, and this voice that just rumbles...”  She drifts off, sighing dramatically.  

“Then you two should make a great pair,” retorts Castiel, his voice thick with sleep.  

“Oh, you hurt me.”  Meg Masters died when she was 23, mugged in an alley.  Castiel sees her as she appeared in life.  She was a natural brunette, but went blonde when that’s what people were doing, whoever those ‘people’ were.  She was, and is, a troublemaker in every way.  

See, the dead have jobs.  They control nature and the earth.  They carry the wind and make the plants grow.  Meg is the reason two-headed sheep are born, why sometimes a ripe strawberry’s seeds will grow into three inch long hairs, and why people always seem to find spiders when they’re about to fall asleep.  Meg still has a lot of things to work out, and Castiel hopes she find her way.  

When the dead first arrive, like new boy, they don’t talk much.  They’re heavy, stuck in their graves.  But they lighten.  The more they talk, work out the problems they had in life, come to terms with things that they did, or that happened to them, the lighter they get, until they move on from their duties and go to wherever they go.  

Castiel sometimes wonders where Meg will go.  Sometimes he wonders where he will go.  

“Did you actually talk to him?”  Castiel has learned to go on more than Meg’s judgement.  She’s had a hard life, and she’s still heavier than most.  

“Well, no.  But did you see his friends?  Shady guys.  They all had cuts and bruises and scars- oh shit.  Sorry, Cas.  I didn’t mean it like that.”  Meg looks guilty.

One of the reasons Castiel’s father and Lucifer left was because of what happened to Castiel.  Before their mother died, she had lost her head a bit.  She hallucinated a lot towards the end, and she had become convinced that Castiel was tainted, possessed.  She spent her last barely sane weeks researching demon and angel sigils and symbols and spells.  She was so sure.  They all spent time with her during the day near the end, but at night, they had to sleep too.  She had come into Castiel’s room to fix him.  She carved symbols she called Enochian into Castiel’s arms and chest.  Some of the higher points reach his neck, and there are still deep purplish-brown scars as thick as slugs across his collarbone.  

It was harder in the beginning and end of the school years.  It gets hot in Kansas, and it became a choice of wearing turtlenecks in one hundred degree weather, or accepting the looks of horror he received from fellow children and their parents.  The teachers tried hard to stop the bullying, but when there’s a rumor as juicy as a psycho mom who carved up her kid like a turkey, there’s not a lot that can stop them.  

All of Castiel’s siblings are much older, Anna being the second youngest at a mere five years his senior, so Castiel didn’t get much help at school.  

So, Castiel likes his job.  Sometimes, when a family custom orders a huge tomb they want built a specific way, his back twinges for a month, like it’s doing now.  But he likes it in the way he can interact while simultaneously being invisible.  He sends out courtesy letters every year and offers comfort and a wonderful graveyard to people’s deceased loved ones, and the dead don’t judge his scars the same way the living do.  The dead have their own scars.  Even the ones who died of old age and natural causes have to stay a little while to sort some last things out.  Maybe it’s a bit sad that all of Castiel’s friends are dead, but at least he’s not a shut-in who orders groceries to never leave the house and will never have any personal connections.  Not quite.  

"I know you didn't.  No need to guiltily sulk. Whenever you let out your truly rude self, I just think about how much hotter I am than you," Castiel teases, "Though, shouldn't you be out helping the rain along?  The ground needs it."

"Trying to get rid of me, Clarence?" Castiel never got that reference and he suspects he never will.  "Karen's covering for me today. I've been watching the new guy until Missouri gets here." But Meg has a glint in her eyes.

"Is Mrs. Singer aware that she's covering for you?" When Meg's lips curve up on one side, Castiel can see he hit the nail on the head.

"Not yet. But she will be," she promises.

"Yeah, she will. Now. They ground is dry and cracked. Get on it, pretty please," he tacks on when he gets a view of her expression.  Castiel smiles as pleasantly as he can manage.

Meg huffs and flips her hair in Castiel's direction when she turns away to speak to Mrs. Singer.  Castiel lets a real smile creep across his face and twists until he's sitting right side up at the end of his bed.

It's early evening and Castiel wonders if their newest addition is up to talking yet. Despite the heat, he puts on shorts and a long-sleeved powder-blue shirt to avoid startling the person he's about to meet. He slips his aching feet into some sandals and heads outside. The air is cooler than it had been earlier, but it's still lukewarm.

When Castiel gets to the grave, Dean, as it says on the stone, is sitting above ground.  It's a good sign. But he's leaning against the stone like he can barely sit up, so it seems that he's fairly heavy at this point.

So Castiel introduces himself and waits, listening.

Dean talks.  With the dead, talking about things helps them move on, work through it; It lightens them.  But while Dean lightens slightly, he’s still heavier than most, and Castiel gets the feeling Dean is holding back a lot of things he’s not ready to talk about yet.

Dean tells Castiel about the men he had seen at the funeral.  Castiel, entranced, listens intently.  Castiel learns their names are Sam, Dean’s brother; Bobby, the man who took Dean and Sam in years ago; and Benny, the closest friend Dean’s ever had.  

“They’re my family.  It’s small, and pieced together over years, but it’s mine.  Or, was,”  Dean adds softly.

“They still are, Dean.  They’ve visited, you know.”

“Yeah.  I know.  It’s weird, not being able to tell Sammy it’s gonna be okay.”  Dean sighs and starts to lean back against his tombstone.  He scrubs a hand down his face.  Castiel wishes he could hold him.

“Would you tell me about them, your family?”  Castiel looks at Dean and quickly looks away again.  

For a long moment Dean says nothing.  Castiel almost takes it back.

“I met Benny six years ago, give or take,”  Dean pauses.  Castiel waits, studying Dean’s face.  He could count the freckles if he wanted to.  Castiel finds that he wants to.

“It had been a rough day.  It was my first week in Boston, and I had already started two jobs - shitty jobs, but work was work - and was looking for a third.  I had just gotten off a nine hour shift with a six hour one finished a few hours before, and I was shit-tired and lost.  I was walking down an abandoned street at ass-o’clock in the morning because it’s really not worth driving in the city, trying to find any place open.  

“Mind you, I had no fucking clue where I was, half delirious from lack of sleep, when I see this bar, like a lighthouse in a storm.  I mean that.  It was the only thing I had seen open in my 20 minute walk.  

“This thing looked like a total dive from the outside.  The Tooth & Fang, they called it, though you wouldn’t know by looking.  The sign’s light up letters they had, shit, only half of ‘em worked.  For all you could tell, it was the Th & ang.  

“So I think to myself, Now, Dean, is this really a place you want to go?  Well, I’ll tell you something Cas,”  Castiel stares, the corners of his mouth sneaking slightly upward at the nickname.  “I walked inside and sat down on a stool so quick, I didn’t even answer my own damn question.”

Castiel lets out a snort and looks to Dean, waiting for him to continue as he moves a bit closer.

“So, I’m sitting there, head in my hands, and I hear the voice of an angel, asking me my drink of choice.  That’s how I met Benny.   I stayed there all night, and every night for the next week. While I was there, when it got late and it was just me and Benny and the few regular drunks left, we talked.  We talked a lot like you and I are doing now.  There was something about Benny that I felt I could just open myself up to.  So I did.  And he did, too.  

“I think Benny liked the company, to be honest.  There was a reason he could only find a job at The Tooth & Fang.  On any given friday or saturday night, the place got more than a few weirdo vampire fetish kids from some university nearby.  The bar became a hangout, which is when Benny got hired as a bartender.  Those fucking assholes go nuts over him.  Fucking creeps, Cas.  

“See, Benny almost died about a decade back.  Boston is a shit city and Benny walked alone back when he was younger, and naïve.  One night he’s walking home and this dick comes out of nowhere, slits Benny’s fucking throat, and loots everything off him.  Benny barely makes it, in the hospital for weeks, and two months later the asshole gets caught trying to carjack some lady in a mall parking lot.  

“These freaks that come in, they have a thing for it, I guess.  They think it’s fucking edgy, like it’s a tattoo or a piercing or some shit.  But, hey.  It secured Benny a job.  The owner of that shit bar never let him go after the freaks told their freak friends about Benny.  It brought in customers, so Benny kept a good job.  

“Still wanted to break the hands of any kid who stared too long, gaga eyes and fetishizing Benny like he’s on Busty Asian Beauties or something.  

“So me and Benny, we sort of bond or whatever, and suddenly I’m telling him my life story.

“Now, Cas.  I’m trusting you here not to judge me. At that point I was sleeping in my car parked somewhere out of the way.  Well, a parking garage. One night, we get deep enough in for me to tell this to Benny.  Long-story short, I got offered a job and a place to live for a quarter of the rent all in one night.  Benny looked out for me.  Because of him, I could afford to have one job and still send money back to Sammy.  I still did some other part time work, but for the first time in awhile, my life was stable.  

“I’ll never stop thanking Benny for what he did for me.  Well, I mean- I guess-”  Dean realizes then that he won’t be able to tell Benny thank you for quite some time.  Dean looks like he’s about to cry, and, again, Castiel wishes he could hold him.  

“Hey, I’ll send him a letter or something, yeah?”  Castiel doesn’t really know what to do.  Dean’s story moved him, and he finds that he feels some sort of connection to Benny.  Maybe through Dean, maybe through living through what they did.

“Would you-” Dean pauses and runs a hand through his hair, biting his lip and taking a shaky breath before speaking again. “Next time he comes, would you just tell him thanks?  Make up a reason if you have to, but- I just need him to hear it, even if it’s not from me.”  

Dean looks up at him, and Castiel’s breath catches when he does.  He nods.  “Of course, Dean,”  he says as gently as he can, sensing Dean needs it.  

“I think I’m gonna hit the hay, dude.  You sure know how to tire a guy out.”  Dean yawns.

Castiel follows suit.  He stands up tall and stretches.  He’s pleasantly surprised when Dean does the same.  It means he’s lightened enough to fully stand above ground without discomfort.  For some, it takes months, laying in their graves, struggling to sit up at all.  Castiel is glad.  

********  
  


Over the next few days, Dean and Castiel talk every night until Dean is light enough to begin his work with nature.  Missouri Moseley finally comes to see Dean on his third morning.  Around the cemetery, people call Missouri the mediator. She offers help in any way she can, encouraging the dead to speak about their lives and unburden themselves.

Missouri shows Dean how to start his work day, coaxing the flowers to bloom out of their buds. Castiel does his duties to keep the grounds clean and the gates locked during the nights.

Some nights Dean tells Castiel about his adventures in Boston, and some nights, rarely, the adventures he and his brother had when they were younger, moving around the country on a weekly to monthly basis.  

After about a month, Dean starts telling Castiel about his childhood, and his scars.  Sometimes Meg sits in. She’s long stopped being intimidated by Dean and his manner.  

But tonight, Meg is spending time with Corbett.  He’s so light now, almost gone.  Ed has visited a few more times, but soon he will be visiting a grave, and a grave alone.

Tonight, Dean tells Castiel about the night he and Sam ran away.

“We had to leave after midnight and drive all the way to North Dakota to get to Bobby’s. I just- I couldn’t let Sammy stay there anymore. Dad was drunk, he’s always been drunk,” Dean starts.  He goes on, telling Castiel about how Bobby was a friend of their mother’s before she burned to death so many years ago.

“That’s what broke Dad. He just loved her so much, you know? But, after she died, he wasn’t our dad anymore. We didn’t even have a house. We lived from motel room to motel room. Sammy was barely 10; he couldn’t go to school, we moved around so much.”  Dean’s bottom lip starts to tremble. Castiel wishes he could tell him to stop, but Dean needs this more than anything else.  

“So one night I call up Bobby and beg him to take Sam in. We left an hour after he agreed. The night before, Dad had hit Sam. He always used to get me, but never Sam. He couldn’t look at Sam most of the time, reminded him too much of Mom. I could take it, but I couldn’t let it happen to Sam- not Sammy. So we left. We got to Bobby’s and he hid us. Dad never filed us missing. Never even bothered. He was the one who-”

Dean stops. Shaking his head, he moves on.

“Bobby got Sam stable. He could finally go to school, shit. You know he goes to Stanford, now? All thanks to Bobby.”

“And you, Dean. He got there because of you,” Castiel adds softly.

“Yeah, yeah. It was worth it. Sammy was worth it, worth it all.”  Dean starts to say something else, but changes his mind. “I think it’s time you get to sleep, Cas.”

“What else?”

“Huh?”

“You said it was worth it all? What did your father do to you?”

“John? He did a lot of things. But Sammy got out, he’s got a girlfriend, I hear.” Dean bites his lip. He looks like a child just now, struggling to keep his chin from wobbling, betraying his stoicism.

“Dean, what did John do? It’s good to talk. Talk,” Castiel pleads.

“He did what you’d expect after the love of his life died! He shattered.  He said I had Mom’s eyes and beat me for it! Is that what you want to hear? You want to hear about I had to protect Sammy since I was four years old from my old man? How it was always ‘Watch out for Sammy, boy’? I don’t think you wanna hear all of it Cas.”

“I’m sorry, Dean. I’m sorry for what happened to you, and I’m sorry for your father. I understand, Dean.” Castiel tries to meet Dean’s eyes, but he won’t let him.

“Bullshit.”

Castiel hesitates, playing with a loose thread at the bottom of his high-collared shirt, before pulling it off. “I do. My mother didn’t lose someone else. She lost herself. She tried to fix me. I know what it’s like to have the person who’s supposed to protect you hurt you most.”

Dean finally looks up, and his eyes widen as he takes in the long, thick gashes and intricate carvings of a madwoman left on his skin. It’s stretched and slightly distorted with age now, but Castiel knows it’s still a toll to look at.

But, apparently, it’s exactly what Dean needed.

“My daddy shot me in the head,” he blurts out. He looks immediately horrified with himself. He clasps his hands over his mouth and finally, finally starts to cry.

Castiel is equally horrified, but conceals it as much as he can, for Dean. “What happened, Dean?” Castiel speaks to Dean as if he’s a frightened animal, and he is.

“One of Dad’s old pals from the war found me in Benny’s bar, I guess. He was one of the only people he still talked to anymore: Alastair. Alastair called up good old John and told him where I was. I bet anything Alastair knew what he was gonna do. I’d bet my life on it, but hey- no life here.

“It took a two day’s drive for Dad to find me. Benny was working a morning shift and I was sleeping back at home after a long night of cleaning up after college freaks. I was- I was just so tired, I didn’t even realize he was in the house until he was standing over my bed.

“I never told Benny about Alastair visiting or everything about my dad, so he didn’t know.” Dean is openly sobbing now. “He didn’t know. He couldn’t.”

“Of course not, Dean. What did John do?” Castiel is trying desperately to control the anger he feels towards John.  This is the best thing for Dean.

“He was so mad. I’ve never seen him so mad, Cas. Not even when Sammy called him up years ago from a payphone to tell him he was going to college. He was so mad at me.” Dean curls up into himself against his headstone. Castiel has seen so many of the dead tell their truly heartbreaking stories, and he’s seen them all lighten for it, but this time it’s different. It moves him in a way he believes he’ll never be able to explain.

“He said I was nothing, a blunt little instrument- He- The bastard had the nerve to tell me that I fucked up Sammy. Me! And after so long, so long, I just snapped. I finally told him. All that crap about protecting Sam, when he was the one who couldn’t save his family. He was the one who let Mom die. He’s the one who was never there for Sam; I always was.

“I’ve never spoken to John like that before; Never. But after that, it was like a dam broke. I just couldn’t stop. I could see the look in his eyes, but it just felt so good to finally say all that shit. I told him he was an obsessed bastard, and I didn’t deserve what he put on me.

“John told me that I should’ve burned to death instead of Mom, that I don’t matter. The one time I stood up for myself, Cas, and he killed me for it.”

It takes several minutes, or hours, for Dean to become coherent again. He shaking and clutching his head.

“You know I was the one who got him the gun he used? The colt. Years after me and Sam left, I found it in an old pawn shop run by an old salty guy named Rufus. I felt bad, absence makes the heart grow fonder and all. John was an abusive drunk, but I left him alone. So I see this gun, the colt, this beautiful gun. Dad had been searching for it for years after the war. He never told me where he first saw it, but he told me it could kill anything. I just didn’t know it could kill me.

“So I bought it with half my paycheck, money that should’ve gone to Sammy, and sent it from a fake return address. I wish I could’ve seen his face, to see if he was still disappointed.

“It seems he was.

“I was shot standing in front of my bed, and I’m not ashamed to admit that I begged. The fucking words ‘Daddy, please’ came out of my stupid goddamned mouth.”

Dean smiles ruefully, tears still strolling down his face.

“You wanna know the nail in the proverbial coffin? I knew he hadn’t been my dad since I was four, since Mom burned to death and he couldn’t save her. The thing that drove it home, was the last thing he said to me. He told me he was proud of me. The way he said it, his eyes glinted so yellow then. I could finally feel it really wasn’t him. John’s been gone for a long time. Who knows, maybe my death brought him back. My soul for his, yeah?”

“Dean, your death was not to save a man who beat you and killed you. Your death was unfair, but you’re seeing how the world works now. You’re lightening, Dean. Don’t let John take that from you, too. What’s dead should stay dead, and your dad died a long time ago, with your mother.” Castiel has never wished so badly that he could touch the dead, just to hold Dean’s hand, to make him see that he was not only useful for trading his soul for another’s. “You don’t think you deserve to be saved. Dean, oh Dean. I have met so many dead, too many. You are the most righteous, the purest man I’ve ever met.”  

Dean, finished crying, smiles his first true smile this night. He’s light now. Almost as light as Corbett.

Dean wiped his eyes, and for reasons Castiel will never fully discern, he kisses him.

Castiel has been seeing the dead since he was 8 years old and he has never encountered anyone who could do this, anyone like Dean.

“How? That’s not- that’s never. You shouldn’t be able to do that?” Castiel is completely frozen in shock. He can feel where Dean’s lips actually touched his. “Missouri said it was impossible.”

“I know. Or, well, shit. I don’t know.” Dean pauses for a long, drawn-out moment. “Thank you, Cas. For all you’ve done for me.”

“Dean-”

“Do you think there’s pie where I’m going? Mom used to make pie.” Dean drifts, still touching Castiel, holding his hand.

“I don’t know. I hope so, Dean.”

Castiel falls asleep above Dean’s grave, cradled in the soft new grass and moss covering it, and Dean’s presence. A smile is present hours into his sleep.

****

When he wakes, Dean is gone.

Castiel expected it soon of course, but not this soon. He likes to think he was prepared, but the dead, after so long of being comforted by Castiel, comfort him.

They whisper that it’s for the best, he’s in a better place, they should know. But not one of them can hold him.

As much as Castiel helped Dean, Dean helped Cas, too.

He calls Anna.

She’s surprised to hear from him; He’s not very good at keeping in touch with his family, until Dean opened his eyes to how important family can be before it’s gone.

They make plans. She agrees to fly down from New York to visit. She asks about Uriel, he pretends he knows. He doesn’t tell her about Gabriel, but plans to, soon.

He starts to wear t-shirts.

He starts to go into town.

He makes plans for the future.

He is himself, and accepts himself. All of himself, even his scars.

He owes Dean so much, but he owes him to live.

 


End file.
